California Agriculture’s Chinese Roots
By Carmen Lee
In Stuff & Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food
System, Raj Patel noted the role of immigration in
California’s agricultural history – beginning with
indigenous people, followed by Chinese, Japanese,
Filipinos, Mexicans, Punjabis and Oaxacan. Each group
brought their own foods, skills, seeds and expertise –
thus contributing to California’s agricultural prosperity
(our state produces one third of our nation’s food), while
enduring racism and exclusion. (See preceding article
for more information on book and web site.)
With the growing interest in local food and where it
comes from, I joined the California Historical Society’s
tour, Following the Golden River: Early Chinese Pioneers
of California’s Heartland. This weekend journey traced
the footsteps of the early Chinese who arrived in San
Francisco on their way to work in the Sierra Nevada gold
mines, railroad, and levees of the Central Valley from
Marysville to Stockton.
Gold Rush
Farmers from China’s Pearl River Delta region began
immigrating to California during the Gold Rush of 1849.
These immigrants came to seek a better life in Gum Shan
(Gold Mountain) – fleeing invasions by foreign powers,
civil unrest, inflation, famines resulting from
overpopulation and natural disasters (earthquakes, fires,
periodic floods and droughts).
California welcomed the Chinese in 1850 with enactment
of the Foreign Miners Tax, which was mainly collected
from the Chinese in an attempt to drive them from the
mines and contributed up to half of California’s revenue.
While some Chinese miners opened laundries and
restaurants (creating Hangtown Fry, a variation of the
Cantonese egg foo young) to provide a more steady living,
others cultivated patches of vegetables, sweet potatoes
and fruits. By the early 1860s, Chinese were growing
vegetables in virtually every mining camp where they
were found and along major transportation routes. Miners
reached the mining camps by traveling along the
Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers.
Transcontinental Railroad
From 1865 to 1869, over 10,000 Chinese were involved
in the construction of the first transcontinental railroad,
which facilitated the transport of California produce. The
railroad fed white workers beef, beans, potatoes, bread
and drinking water from contaminated streams. In contrast,
the Chinese ate a more balanced diet of rice, dried fish,
vegetables, fruits and tea – which they transported by
their own supply network – and thereby avoided some
dietary diseases common to other workers.
Agriculture
At the time of the Gold Rush, California’s food source
came primarily from cattle-raising. The Central Pacific
Railroad Company’s use of Chinese labor inspired other
entrepreneurs to hire Chinese in other large construction
projects, such as swampland reclamation and levee building
that helped convert the Sacramento River Delta into some
of the richest farmland in the world. Brian Tom, founder
of the Chinese American Museum of Northern California
in Marysville, noted that when the Chinese first immigrated
to California in the mid-19th century, China had
developed the most advanced agricultural technology
in irrigation, crop rotation and fertilization.
Chinese rarely made more than a dollar a day as laborers
and domestic help. Also, the Chinese stayed as much to
themselves as possible . . .”
Ecology Action’s John Jeavons has acknowledged the
“highly effective, resource-conserving, and sustainable
4,000-year-old Chinese Biointensive way of farming.”
Chinese from the Pearl River Delta had experience in
controlling waters and developing fertile farmland in
inaccessible river valleys.
In 1915, a group of Chinese built their own town on
Delta land leased from George Locke. (Under California’s
1913 Alien Land Act, Chinese were not allowed to own
land – until this law was declared unconstitutional in
1952.
Beginning in the 1860s, Chinese began reclamation of
land in Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, a marshy swamp
that was subject to heavy flooding. This work involved
building a series of levees to control the flooding. They
hired for as little as 90 cents a day, using hand shovels
and wheelbarrows.
By 1880, they reclaimed 88,000 acres from Delta
marshlands for agricultural production – notably
developing “Asparagus Capital of the World” and the
major source of Bartlett pears. Canneries arose near the
fruit orchards and farms to handle the produce as soon
as it was harvested.
“Driving Out”
The railroad brought cheap manufactured goods and
unemployed European immigrants from the East Coast,
triggering an economic depression in the West and the
Chinese were made scapegoats. During the “Driving
Out” period, white mobs burned and plundered Chinese
communities throughout the West. Most Chinese farm
workers, who made up 75% of California’s agricultural
workers in 1890, were expelled. The vacant agricultural
jobs, which later proved to be unattractive to unemployed
whites, were filled then by Japanese workers.
Locke
The Sacramento Delta was one of the few places where
Chinese escaped violence. In Bitter Melon: Inside
America’s Last Rural Chinese Town, James Motlow
observed, “Undoubtedly, the enormous fortunes made
by Delta landowners, canners and shippers helped soothe
the intolerance of the Chinese: until World War II,
Sacramento County, which governs the 10 acres on which
Locke was built, subdivided the land to enable its residents
to purchase land for the first time in 2004.) For almost
5 decades, Locke was inhabited solely by Chinese. As
the children of Locke’s first families left for higher
education and professional careers, whites followed by
a few Filipino and Mexican families moved in.
Designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990, Locke
today has 10 remaining Chinese residents from its peak
of 600, a community garden and memorial in honor of
the “industrious Chinese pioneers of California whose
strength and sacrifice helped build the transcontinental
railroad, construct the levees of the Sacramento-San
Joaquin Delta, and develop agriculture in the Central
Valley.”
This reflection on the experiences of Chinese pioneers
and other immigrants in bringing produce from “farm to
table” gives much food for thought and appreciation. For
more information or discussion, contact Carmen Lee
carmen_cebs@yahoo.com
Carmen would like to thank the following persons who
led the journey back 160 years and provided commentary
on California’s agricultural roots: Steve Yee
(www.yeefowmuseum.org), Connie King & Clarence Chu
(www.locketown.com), Ron Wong
(www.californiastaterailroadmuseum.org), Dr. Herbert
Yee, Richard Rich (www.sacramentorailyards.com), Brian
& Lawrence Tom (www.bokkaifestival.com), Dr. Gaing
& Lily Chan (www.cityoforoville.org), Gary Holloway
& Lisa Eriksen (www.californiahistoricalsociety.org).